Building automation systems or building control systems are systems that operate to monitor, control and manage various physical operations within a building. For example, a heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) system is a building automation system that monitors, controls, and manages the building environmental temperature, as well as other related functions. Another example of a building automation system is a building safety or fire safety system, which manages the detection of dangerous conditions as well as the notification of alarm conditions throughout a building or facility.
Building automation systems include, at least for commercial and industrial settings, interconnected control panels or controllers that are dispersed throughout a building. These distributed controllers perform control and interface functions to terminal devices such as temperature sensors, ventilation dampers, smoke detectors, etc. The distributed control panels/controllers are typically interconnected with each other via a building network, which can take many forms. In this manner, the distributed control panels can share information, such as, for example, alarm information. The building network also provides a means by which other centralized or remote user terminals or clients may access information from the distributed controllers.
One challenge with regard to building automation devices is that they often include devices from multiple manufacturers that must share information with each other. While some standards for building automation devices exists, different devices from different manufacturers can often use various interfaces, protocols, and applications. The use of devices from multiple manufacturers is common for a number of reasons. In complex systems, it is often impossible, or at least impracticable, to use a single source for all sensors, controllers, ventilation dampers, air handling units. Moreover, many systems grow incrementally over several years, often resulting in incorporation of products of different manufacture.
In order to allow diverse products to communicate and share information, many building automation system devices are configurable to provide a data interface using one or more standard protocols and/or data formats. Both proprietary and open protocols interfaces are employed in large building systems. Device manufacturers often find it desirable to adapt their products to interface with several of the most popular system configurations. A common open protocol network service is the LONWORKS® network service (LNS), available from Echelon Corp. Another commonly used open protocol is the BACnet protocol available in systems from Siemens Building Technologies, Inc., which is based on an ASHRAE standard network protocol known in the art.
One important aspect of a building automation system (BAS) is the ability to provide user interface applications that can access data on field devices. Contemporaneous BAS system data is typically accessible from the distributed control panels, or even from the terminal devices themselves (sensors, etc.). Such access can allow a computer that is attached to the building network to read values from controllers, provide set points to controllers, perform tests, and even commission a new device on the system. In general, an application provides a user interface from which requests to view, control or monitor data may be received from a human operator. Upon receiving a request for information, the application operates by providing a request to a data management system within the building automation system. The data management system operates to determine the logical location (i.e. node) of the device that maintains the requested information and further determines the proper driver/protocol for obtaining useful information from the device. The data management system then formulates a request that is transmitted to the device in question via the building network. The remote device (e.g. a field panel controller) receives the request, and, if everything operates properly, responds with the requested data. The data management system receives the responsive data, prepares the data into the format expected by the application, and then passes the information to the application.
These applications, which allow user access to BAS data points, are often custom-configured for each building. The custom-configured software applications naturally incur significant development costs. To address these costs, standard applications having broad applicability are desirable. While it is possible to develop and employ a standard suite of applications useful in the building control environment, the varied needs of facility managers, building occupants, and building structures nevertheless often requires at least some custom-developed software.
One particularly troubling source of costs is the cost of developing applications for operating on a particular field device, or more specifically, developing human interfaces to the software running on a field device. As discussed above, the various controllers, sensors, actuators, etc. can be of various manufacturers. As a result, such devices have different test requirements, commissioning requirements, and the like. It is often necessary to develop a specific software to interact with the field device firmward or software each model of device to perform these tasks. There is a need to reduce these costs.